Someone had driven a crawler into the area and parked. Zooming in some more, she was only able to detect one person aboard the machine and she decided to engage the small but powerful directional microphone that was part of the imaging system. It had been added to her rifle when the Marine armorer had rebuilt Tatiana, and she had never used it until now.
She didn’t expect to get very much at such a great distance, but she did hope that the mike would grab enough audio to at least confirm how many living entities were in or around the machine, and possibly what their intentions were.
Sure enough, the wind and the distance conspired to distort most of what the device relayed to her psiever, but she still heard enough to make out what it was. Someone was playing music!
Kaly watched the crawler, waiting for any sign that this was some kind of ruse. When nothing else became apparent, and the occupant said something in Standard to what had to be an on-board AI, she concluded that the human woman—whoever she was--was either mad, a complete imbecile, or both. Whichever was the case, she had stopped her vehicle in the open, and well within view of anyone that happened by. And the Necropolis was not a good place to encounter wandering strangers.
Then the thought occurred to her that the driver might be more than just lost, or broken down. She could be one of the Three, Kaly reflected. Or an enemy. She contacted Grammy by psiever right away.
Jan is certain that it is Celina, Grammy replied. Can you get to her right away?
While some sections of the Necropolis were fairly vehicle friendly, others, like the one they were in, were not. Here, it was faster to move on foot, and they both realized this.
Kaly traced a path for herself with her eyes. It would involve descending the tower that she was on, crossing over a narrow avenue, up a much shorter tower, and then over this to a broad flat building which overlooked her target. Definitely a work-out, but she knew that she could traverse it in a reasonable amount of time.
Yes, she answered. It will take me about forty minutes, but I can get there.
Ganz gaff, Grammy thought back. We’ll start that way with the crawler and meet you there.
Kaly began gathering up her things. In addition to renting the crawler, Grammy had also seen to it that Kaly received special equipment to help her do her job. Whoever had rented them the all-terrain vehicle had added climbing gear, rope, half a dozen GSG-20 grenades, and a suppressed GSC-19 submachinegun to serve as a back-up weapon. None of this was part of the standard emergency kit by any means, and when Kaly had taken custody of it, she had privately wondered at Grammy’s resourcefulness, and connections.
Lethal little toys like the GSC-19, and the explosives, were hardly ‘floating around in space’ for anyone to lay their hands on, and every bit of her gear was genuine Sisterhood manufacture. In the end though, it really didn’t matter. What did, was that they were all in working order. Which they were. In fact, every item was brand new.
Her ropes were already in place, and waiting for her. She had free-climbed up to her perch, and now she used the primary line to rappel down the steep-sided tower to the ground. Once her feet hit the earth, she tugged at the secondary rope, releasing the special knot she had tied in it. Both lines came loose and dropped.
She needed only a few moments to retrieve them, and then she was off. In short order, she reached the next tower and began her ascent. As she climbed, Kaly heard their crawler starting up and beginning its journey towards their rendezvous point. As she reached the summit, she glanced back over her shoulder and spotted it. At the speed it was moving, she knew that she would definitely reach the target’s location before her companions did.
Right away, she started down the opposite side, rappelling again to make up for lost time. When she finally reached her destination and was able to observe Celina’s crawler once more, she brought up Tatiana and sighted in on it. Then she panned around the area. What she saw, chilled her blood.
Off in the field of broken masonry, and making its way steadily forwards, was a group of humanoids. T’lakskalan slavers to be exact.
There were five of them in all. Four were carrying what looked like Seevaan assault weapons, and the fifth held a wand-shaped object that projected a crimson beam. It swept this back and forth as the party moved along, and Kaly realized that the strange light was actually shining through the stones. It was a seeker beam, created by humanity’s enemies, the Greys, and the Tee-Laks used it to find and incapacitate their prey.
The beam played over the crawler and its lone occupant, and on her directional mike, Kaly heard the woman gasp and cry out. The Tee-Laks had her, and if she didn’t do something about it, they would take her prisoner and sell her off-planet as a slave.
She called Grammy by psiever and informed her about the situation. Right away, Grammy throttled the crawler’s engine back and stopped where she was. Whatever happened next would be completely in Kaly’s hands.
She sighted in on the alien with the seeker beam and took her shot. The malandrium round burst the reptilian’s head like a ripe chibba melon and his companions panicked.
The Tee-Lak’s hadn’t expected to meet any kind of resistance and they scrambled for cover among the rocks. One of them even had enough presence of mind to return fire. His Seevaan weapon made even less sound than Kaly’s suppressed rifle had, and near her, a piece of the parapet that she was using for protection simply vanished, leaving behind a smoking hole only a little larger than the beam itself.
Following the ancient dictum of ‘shoot and scoot’, Kaly kept low and scrambled to a new shooting position. This gave her a clear line of sight on another Tee-Lak and she dropped him with a second head shot.
Two down, she thought.
His partner, who had been crouching next to him, broke cover and tried to change position, firing as he went. He never made it; his head became a bloody mist.
Three down.
A fourth Tee-Lak was hiding behind a boulder and fired at her. Another chunk of stone near Kaly ceased to be, but the beam had missed her, and that was all that really counted. As she tried to sight in on him, his partner ‘got stupid’ and tried to add his own gunfire into the equation. He just didn’t remember to keep behind cover when he did so. Tatiana quickly educated him about his grave tactical error.
One left.
She moved again, hoping to find a better shooting angle for herself. Unfortunately, the remaining Tee-Lak had chosen his spot well, and she was unable to get a bead on him.
So she resorted to something that she had learned on Larra’s Lament from one of her Sniper Instructors. The woman, who was a Zommerlaandar, had nicknamed it ‘Eek’da Skeela’, or ‘Barking the Squirrel’. It was an old trick that hunters on Sunna 3 sometimes used against a target that was behind cover, and it served snipers just as readily.
Kaly selected a spot on the rock face nearest to where she believed her opponent was crouching, and fired at it. The stone fragmented, and the slivers exploded in all directions. A loud hissing whistle followed this as the Tee-Lak, hit by the razor sharp pieces, howled in pain and rolled into view. He wasn’t dead, but he was severely wounded.
Kaly alleviated his suffering with another well-placed round.
All down. None to go.
She didn’t rise, but changed her location one more time and waited to make certain that there weren’t any more enemies to deal with. When it was obvious that she had neutralized all the T’lakskalans, she signaled to Grammy and Jan that the area was clear.
Grammy restarted the engine and brought the crawler to within 30 meters. Then she and Jan got out and began to approach the disabled vehicle.
Barely half-way to their destination, they were startled by the sound of the machine coming to life. Unable to move, the crawler rocked violently in place, destroying what little was left of its gearing system while brilliant tongues of electricity crackled to life all over its hull.
A female voice challenged them from an external speaker.
“Stay back!�
� Clio warned. “I have redirected this machines power source and created a lethal force field. I am also ready to transmit sound waves capable of stunning you into unconsciousness! You will not be allowed to hurt my mistress.”
Wisely, the pair stopped right where they were. “Your passenger,” Grammy asked her. “Your mistress—is she okay?”
Clio did not answer, and the electric fire covering the crawler continued to hiss menacingly. The machine however, had stopped rocking.
“I can see that you are a good and faithful servant,” Grammy said soothingly, “and that you care about your mistress very deeply. I assure you that we are not here to hurt her. We are humans just like she is, and we want to help.”
“I don’t believe you,” Clio retorted. “Stay away or I will hurt you!”
“If you don’t let us help, we’ll leave,” Grammy replied. “And more of those aliens will come, looking for their companions. They will attack you, and eventually, overwhelm you. Then they will harm your mistress. Please, let us approach. We only want to get her away from here to safety.”
The electrical field died down to almost nothing, and Clio went silent. It was obvious that the AI was considering its options. There weren’t many for it to choose from.
Presently, the field disappeared and the canopy popped open. “You can approach, and help,” Clio told them. “But be warned! If I sense any treachery, I will kill you!”
“Perfectly acceptable,” Grammy agreed. “There will be no treachery and when she hears of this, your mistress will be very proud of you. You have served her well.”
She signalled to Jan, and they started forwards again. When they reached the crawler, and nothing happened, Jan clambered over the lip of the open cockpit. A minute later, she reappeared.
“She’s stunned,” she announced, beckoning for Grammy to come up and assist her. “The seeker beam got her, but I think she’ll be okay.”
Together, they lifted Celina up and out of the crawler. All the while, Clio had been monitoring their progress, and she couldn’t contain herself any longer.
“Is she all right?” the AI asked them worriedly. “I could never forgive myself if she was permanently injured. Please, tell me that she’ll recover.” Had she possessed hands, she would have been wringing them raw with worry.
“She will,” Grammy told her. “The seeker beam just paralyzes its victim, and only for a little while. The T’lakskalan’s need their prisoners alive. She’ll come around in a few minutes.”
This mollified the AI, but only to a degree. She still continued to fuss over Celina as they carried her over to their vehicle.
While they loaded her in and secured her, Kaly came down from her perch and lent a hand by grabbing the musician’s possessions—including the handbag that housed the woman’s anxious AI. When everything was aboard and they were ready to go, she went back to Celina’s crawler one last time and took out a GSG-20 grenade, dropping it into the now-abandoned cabin. Set on guard-mode, it would arm itself and explode when the next living thing came near it.
“Something for the Tee-Laks,” she explained to her companions. “In case they come looking for their friends.” No one could disagree with her choice of thank-you gifts.
It was another hour before Celina began to come around. By this time, they were well away from the scene of the Tee-Lak slaughter, and making good progress. She was still numb, and more than a little disoriented.
“W-where am I?” she asked, her words slurring from the after effects of the Seeker beam. “Who—who are you?”
Grammy, who had been riding in the back of their vehicle, and keeping watch over her, answered. “We’re friends,” she said, “and sisters, on the same quest that you are.”
It took a moment for the befuddled woman to process this, and then her eyes widened. “You—you know about the Song?”
Grammy smiled, and bobbed her head. Then she told her about the Tree, and the Three who would wield its powers. As she listened, the musician’s eyes became even wider and filled with a mixture of awe, and fear. She looked at Jan.
“So, if I ‘m the Singer,” she said. “Who are you? The Guide? Or the User?”
Jan looked back at her from over her shoulder, “I-I’m not sure,” she answered tentatively. “I think I’m the Guide, but we won’t know until we get there. The name’s Jan by the way, and I love your work. I have all your realies.”
Celina managed to summon up a weak smile. “Pleased to meet you Jan. I hope you like the Song. I’d like to say it’s mine, but now--.”
She didn’t finish and she didn’t have to. Everyone in the crawler understood; like the Song itself, everything was really in the hands of the Galaxy Mind. Including whether they ultimately lived, or died.
CHAPTER 16
The Necropolis, Ashkele Free Port, Hallasa System, Frontier Zone, Xee Protectorate, 1049.03|09|07:06:83
After exploring the underground tunnels leading away from the Tree, Skylaar assigned each of them a number, and chose the third passage to serve as their bolt-hole. It was the longest of them all, and headed off to the south before spiraling up towards the surface.
From there, it was only a short distance to an open area that was large enough to accommodate the JUDI. The remaining two tunnels to the northeast and northwest didn’t afford the same open route to safety, and it was decided that these would be left clear until the other women arrived. After that, they would be rigged with explosives to defend against Angelique and her forces.
Since none of them knew when, or from what direction their guests, or their enemies, would arrive, they agreed that each of them would stand a watch at the very top of the Tree’s tower.
Maya volunteered for the first shift. In the process of ascending to her post, she suddenly discovered that she was able to feel her symbiote again and could even access her psiever. The mysterious nullification field did not extend all the way to the summit. Instead, it terminated just as abruptly as it had in the tunnels, halfway up.
She stopped climbing immediately, and pulled out a hand light from her survival kit. Recalling the Agency version of the ancient Morse code, she sent a message down to the others. After a second, Jeena signaled back up. If things began to look bad, he told her, Skylaar wanted her to use her emergency Com to send a signal out to the JUDI for an immediate pick-up.
Indicating that she understood, she resumed her ascent. When she finally reached the top several minutes later, she paused, and gave herself a moment to take in the landscape spread out before her. The huge arched ‘windows’ afforded her an excellent view of everything around the plaza, and the sheer immensity of the Necropolis took her breath away.
Even though she had spent her childhood at its edges, and had seen plenty of holos and views from space, the vista that the tower afforded her brought her understanding of the Drow’voi ruins to an entirely new level. It was a place of cyclopean proportions, dwarfing even Thermadon in sheer scale. Unlike the Sisterhood’s capitol however, it was completely empty. As far as anyone knew, not even a centimeter of it was permanently inhabited by anything more than the local animals and some insects. That, and its ancient ghosts. Shivering at the eerie desolation all around her, she brought out a compact pair of manoculars and got to work scanning the area.
At the moment, the plaza was devoid of any movement, and this gave her some time to consider her situation, and what lay ahead. After her conversation with Josette and the others, she had come to suspect that she was the User after all, and when the JUDI had transited into Null, and was on its way to Ashkele, she had asked Skylaar if her hunch was correct.
The Nemesian had confirmed it. She had also asked her to consider the awesome responsibility that would be placed upon her shoulders, and what she would do with her temporary power. Since that conversation, Maya had been trying to come up with a ‘shopping list’ that would satisfy her teacher.
There was only one small glitch; she didn’t have any lofty ideas.
Like any other lit
tle girl, she had heard plenty of fairy tales that involved magical wishes. Some of them had ended well, and others quite horribly. They were only stories though, and even as a child, she had never really cared for the theme. Maya had always preferred wild adventures where the protagonist outwitted an evil giant, or a wicked sorceress, and stole away their treasures.
Now, whether she wanted it or not, she was faced with the adult equivalent of the ‘three wishes’ fable, and she was at a total loss. To compound the problem, Skylaar had refused to supply any suggestions of her own, and everyone else had been just as uncooperative.
“We cannot interfere,” Skylaar had explained. “The Pa’lla made that abundantly clear. The User must be the one who makes the final choices, and only the User. And her choices must be from the heart. Once inside the process, rational thought will become distorted and only true desire will survive.”
With that, Maya was left to solve the problem on her own.
Universal peace among all galactic beings had been one promising candidate. So was a cure for all the diseases known to Womankind. But when she really weighed them in her mind, neither managed to meet Skylaar’s test. She didn’t give a spacer’s damn about galactic harmony, or eternal life for that matter. As far as she was concerned, the galaxy’s myriad races could go right on blowing each other to atoms, and the concept of absolute physical well-being didn’t overly excite her. Not on a gut level. Not where it would count.
Revenge on the other hand, was another matter entirely, she realized. There were more than a few ‘galactic beings’ that she had it in for, and had she had her way, she would have happily settled on this, and been done with it. But with Skylaar and Lady Ananzi to answer to, she knew that she had to come up with something better.
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